I may be wrong, but I think only Americans understand what the “American Dream” really is.
Those from other countries have deluded perceptions in thinking that
- all Americans have it or are striving for it, and that
- it is served on a silver platter without having to lift a finger.
No!
The American Dream is something that one must work for and work hard for. It also involves Personal Responsibility which is the antithesis of the Nanny/Welfare states in other parts of the developed world. America is VERY unforgiving in this manner.
The American Dream is being who you want to be with America being the place to have the opportunity to do so. It’s *NOT* about having more shiny expensive gadgets than your neighbor. The American Dream is *NOT* about spending plastic money and then going into debt to buy that 1558800069877 inch plasma TV. It’s *NOT* about having a family of 6 with a dog and a big back yard with a barbecue made for cooking 4 inch hamburgers in liquid smoke and with green grass and daddy on the drivable lawn mover.
Immigrants from impoverished nations move here (both legally and illegally) not in every case for the “American Dream” but to make fast cash to send back home to their respective countries in a lot of cases. Other nations have this illusion that if a person from a 3rd world country comes to America, that all they have to do is sit back with their hands out and that the Americans will give them everything they wish for requiring no effort from the newcomer. And when the Americanophobe finds out that the immigrant has to work toward their goal, the “American Dream” then becomes a “myth” and we have to hear how “racist” and “cruel” we are to foreigners… for offering them work or requiring it to live. Suffice it to say that the ILLEGAL immigrants do much better than the poor folk that were actually BORN, bred, and pay taxes in America.
This article, “Special Canada Day Report: How Canada stole the American Dream“ while accurate on many accounts regarding the Canada vs America debate, is a perfect example of how other nations don’t get where the term “The American Dream” came from or why it is even used.
The article above is biased in that the author is comparing ALL Canadians with only the Evangelical Neo-Conservative population in the US rather than looking at ALL Canadians vs ALL Americans in its entirety. But Americanophobic Canadians are insecure and their mentors feel a compelling need to teach even more patriotism with hopes that Canada will feel less self-loathing. You know, like the kind of “America – love it or leave it” type of patriotism that we’re taught here at home. 
I will say that America is still known as “The Land of Opportunities” which is why many from other nations come here to make something of themselves or to expand even greater on their goals. The American Dream is to take advantage of that opportunity whether it be for work or a higher education at one of our renowned ivy league universities.
This is not to say that you cannot afford opportunities in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan or in other places around the world. What makes us different (in context to this topic) is minor. But when people from other places around the globe make it big in the US, you cannot help but to wonder that there just may be a difference between the US and other developed countries, in this regard.
Why must I be obliged to post about 9-11 on its anniversary to be taking it seriously? I was thinking about posting something in the form of linking to an old one that I wrote, but thought it would be dumb to do so as it is already out there.
Have you read my political profile to see where I stand politically? It’s only been there since the start of this blog, and I am a self-proclaimed liberal. I thought that you knew that. Do you know that my 9-11 post already exists on this blog, and on that day I was on one of the planes headed to New York? I have a big story. Not a devastating one, but a story of my own that I will never forget (hence my Never Forget sticker). Have you ever taken the time to check the stickers that I stand for on my blog? The difference between my analysis on 9-11 and the Anti-American analysis is the very fact that the Anti-Americans WERE HAPPY THAT WE GOT OUR ASS KICKED AND THOUGHT THAT WE DESERVED IT. Seanne, that is a HUGE difference. HUGE. There is blame to be found with the FBI, CIA, TSA, our government ect…. I have the book written by the Bush’s own administration that also has found blame with particular groups and individual leading up to those events. Have you ever read the 9-11 Commission Report written by our own government? That is where I got my facts. And you have the nerve to tell me that I think it was an “inside job”? Ok, well you were guessing. I don’t know. 9-11 stirs up a lot of emotion in me and you’ve hit some bad buttons.
I think you really should catch up on my posts. I am shocked and a bit hurt that you are accusing ME (of all people) of blaming America for 9-11.
I have written numerous posts pointing out and speaking staunchly AGAINST the blame America first crowd. And I bet nobody’s voice has ever been as loud as mine. But you cannot just sit there at the same time thinking that this country is clean as a whistle, right?
Is it too complex to think that a Liberal could actually be interested in defending her people and her country? Remember, the first reply you posted to my blog was in this post. <— This is ironic for me.
Yes, The shades of gray. They exist. There’s no black and white in anything. And for the record, I am NOT a Leftist. I am a Liberal. There’s a HUGE difference! Please, for the love of all that’s holy, don’t lump me in with that group of extremists. THEY are the people I fight against – not with.
See, that’s where we differ and you have to expect that because I am a Liberal. I kinda figured I’d get a post like this from you or other conservatives at some point, but was giving you the benefit of the doubt because you were so accepting of me in the beginning even though I told you that I wasn’t a Conservative. What did you expect? And to address your concern, I actually find Obama to be Pro-American. Anything but Anti-American. I look at your blog every once in a while and you say things that I don’t agree with, but I refuse to hassle you for that because I thought that we had a common interest: fighting Anti-Americanism.
I have spent a lot of time with this blog standing up to the Anti-Americans. I have spent ample time collecting a knowledge-base of literature from all over the world regarding Anti-Americanism with every angle of it covered for all to see and reference to. I’ve been in heavy active fights with the Anti’s almost everyday in my comment sections. I’ve been receiving hate mail. And this is the thanks I get? Not that I expect a thank you, but you know what I mean. Did you ever bother to read how I define Patriotism in my glossary section or even how I define Anti-American Americans? Naturally, these are subjective definitions. But based on how I see things, I am a true patriot and am disturbed by one of my comrades calling ME an Anti-American. I find that quite insulting considering my passion on this topic.
And 9-11 is something that kills me inside, and you have the nerve to say that I justify their deaths!?!? 9-11 is the most passionate topic for me as well – which is another reason I was hesitant to put it on the front page of my blog because this place, by its very nature, attracts foreign Anti-Americans. I don’t think I was ready to hear from them again that my people deserved to die tragically on that day. So, I spent time thinking about it, but decided to post about something else while I was thinking. I was even pondering to post about it today. In any event, I feel as passionately about that day as you do, but I don’t have to prove it.
I have all the information that you just gave me in your response. I am aware of all the things you are aware of. What we don’t have in common is how we define patriotism.
If you have the time, please catch up on my posts in my Anti-Americanism section. Read the purpose of my blog in my disclaimer and my about me section.
I rail against radical leftists, radical conservatives, and Anti-Americanism. I am proud of where I was born and will continue to stand up against Anti-Americanism. Oh, that might be another difference between you and I. Perhaps what it means to be Anti-American for me is something different from you. Please check out my glossary. And I hope I become more clear to you.
I mean no harm. If I didn’t have good intentions about our country, I wouldn’t be wasting all this time talking to the Anti-Americans.
Remember the grays…. please!
P.S. If you read this blog entry in its entirety, I am addressing Anti-Americanism here too.
Hello VM! Sorry I haven’t been around for a while, been busy trying to make a living. And also, I’m beginning to wonder about some of your views. I don’t know if I think you’re as anti-anti-American as you say you are. And that’s disappointing to me.
Take this post. It was written, or at least posted on, September 11. Why would you post a piece about the American Dream on that date? There was NOTHING in this piece about the tragedy of 9/11. Why not?
I’m beginning to believe that people on the Left are uncomfortable with 9/11 because that tragic event exposes the stupidity of their worldview. The only way left-leaning people–and you seem to be one–can deal with 9/11 is by blaming America for it, hence the creation of the 9/11 conspiracy industry. Blame America, blame Bush; that’s the only thing the Left knows how to do. I find it both incomprehensible and frightening that the slaughter of 3000 of their fellow countrymen wasn’t enough to pry leftists from their anti-American narrative. If anything, 9/11 caused them to cling even more tightly to their blame America first doctrine. The fact that you are apparently blind to that phenomenon is disturbing to me. Your support for Barack Obama is also disturbing to me, considering your professed opposition to anti-Americanism.
Karen, how can you honestly claim to be against anti-Americanism while supporting for president a man who can accurately be described as a protege of the hate America Left? That would be like claiming to be against racism while supporting David Duke for president.
Surely, Karen, you don’t think that Obama’s 20 year membership in Treason United Church of Christ is meaningless. I understand the view that guilt by association is unfair; I also understand, though, the old saying: birds of a feather flock together. Karen, Obama’s church has a long history of supporting anti-Americanism, Marxism, and terrorism.
In the ’80’s TUCC supported the communist Sandinistas in Nicaragua. The church is a firm supporter of the Palestinians and even reprinted an article by a Hamas terrorist in its official bulletin. The religion preached at TUCC is Black liberation theology which is nothing more than Marxism covered with a thin veneer of Christianity. Obama claims he sat in this church for TWO DECADES without sharing its radical beliefs. Do you really believe that, Karen?
Jeremiah Wright is close friends, as is Obama, with Michael Pfleger, a liberationist “Catholic”. On a visit to Wright’s church during the primaries Pfleger shrieked that America had been “raping people of color” for years and therefore “America has to pay!”. This view that America bears unique and unprecedented guilt and deserves payback is a fundamental belief of the modern Left, the Left that’s been Obama’s political home his whole adult life. Do you not understand that Karen, or do you just not care?
If you are really against anti-Americanism, Karen, you have to oppose the domestic variety as well as the foreign. And unfortunately for you domestic anti-Americanism comes almost exclusively from the Left. It’s leftists who make movies smearing our troops; it’s leftists who pass ordinances calling Marine recruiters “unwelcomed and uninvited intruders”; it’s leftists who accuse America of operating another Auschwitz at Gitmo; it’s leftists who call 9/11 victims “little Eichmans”; it’s leftists who shout “God damn America!” from the pulpit; it’s leftists who trash, smear, denounce, and condemn America every chance they get. And I say once again, it’s on the Left where Obama has lived his entire political life.
Karen, I don’t know what you’re going to make of the above facts but I suggest you don’t ignore or deny them. I really want to believe that you’re a patriot, that you’re on America’s side. But some of your views are making me wonder. Drop by my blog and tell me what you think, or write a post here explaining why you’re comfortable voting for someone who’s spent his entire political life in association with blatantly anti-American people and organizations. Please explain how supporting such a person doesn’t contradict your professed patriotism. I really want to understand. God bless.
Seane-Anna @ PoorGrrl Zone